Appa
Adapted from Macbeth by William Shakespeare
2015
The night sky peeped in from an opening between the dark faces of the mountains that circumscribed a small wooden house and just beside it, a miniature terrace of wheat. The house stood solitary, separate from the rest of the village houses that were built on the other side of the mountain. As the wind swirled inside this funnel, travelling from the sky to the infinite blackness below the house, the rustle of the husk of the crop echoed and rode the hollowness of the wind. Even inside the house with bolted windows and doors, the wind could be felt in the crackling of the century old pine wood panelling of the crumbling house, and also through the chimney over the fluttering flames in the furnace. This was the only audible element that Garjan noticed the presence of in the house, besides the usual crickets, sporadic dry coughs of Nanima, and the sound of aluminium utensils being slid, lifted and dragged around once in a while in the kitchen by Amma.
He was a lean boy with dark brown serious eyes and a sharp nose. He had his Science book open in front of him, as his final exams for class five were going to start in two days, but till Amma wouldn’t come and give him a beating, he would remain to be ignorant of the existence of the book. He always failed to understand all that was taught to him, because every day after coming back home from the chaos and excitement in school, when he sat down to gather in his head the lessons taught in class, he experienced for long hours the high pitched disturbing sound of silence. It would break only when his mother would return late in the evenings exhausted from an entire day’s physical domestic work on a pakdandi over the peak. She had the physique and hands of a labourer. Wrinkles had begun to appear on her face, and the coarse skin of her firm hands had sagged a bit. As she entered, the feel of spoken words was relaxing to Garjan’s ears, but in this too, he did not find relief. “Saara din peeth tod ke aao, aur ye saahab wahaan let ke sapne dekh rahe hain. Doosre ne to bas saunp diya hai mujhe in dono ko sambhaalne ka kaam. Wo khud ghar na hi aaye to khoob hai!” Bhama had become very frustrated lately. Garjan could recall spending enjoyable time with her till just a few months back when his parents had a tremendous argument.
Lying down on his stomach with his head resting on the book, and entangled in the memories of the joys that seem lost somewhere deep down the past, he is brought back to the present with the murmurings of his mother. He could hear only fragments of whatever she spoke to herself while washing utensils. She mumbled, “yahaan kya bachaa hai…ghar pe to rehta nahi…baarish bhi…khet bhi saara khatam…” Garjan tried to distract himself from the constant muttering of insignificant and almost incomprehensible succession of words. He squinched his eyes and face to look through the mud streaks on the cracked glass window behind the rusted iron grill, but no matter how hard he tried, he could see only the darkness of the night and the soft reflection of the warm light from the fire behind him. The orange glow in the glass gave him a temporary comfort, so he kept his eyes fixed at it. Just as he started to feel drowsy, and his eyes started to roll into sleep, he heard the sound of ghunghrus. It was her, the one who wandered across mountains in the night, with her feet facing a direction opposite to her destination. She was the one whom all feared, as the one who would see her would be stolen of all the years left in life. She would exist till people would continue to see her. Sleep was the only thing that could save one from her, but it was much past Garjan’s time to sleep. Tales about her were recited in each house to each kid several times like a nursery rhyme.
Dhokar bojh jo pairon mein
Chale wo do do ore
Dikhe to mukti de de
Chura ke ik ik saal
Just as it was repeating in Garjan’s head, with his eyes now transfixed at the foggy and bitter cold window in fear, he saw a black figure pass from the outside. A gentle walk seemed so ferocious when at night it was accompanied with the periodic thumping of unnatural bare feet on the ground with a single tone reverberating from the ghunghrus wrapped around the ankles. The sound had faded away, and as Garjan recalled his ability to speak, and brought words to his mind and tongue, he realised that his mother had not heard anything out of the ordinary, as she was still mumbling, “…kya samajhtaa…ghar aayega beech raat…khaana…mauj mein…haath uthakar…chala kyun nahi jaata?” In shock and frustration Garjan erupted. “Amma, to main bhi chala jaata hoon na. Waise bhi mujhe yahaan nahi rehna. Appa ko to kuchh farak padega nahi. Shayad unko pata bhi na chale ki main chala gaya hoon. Aaj kal tum bhi kahin khoyi rehti ho. Baat bhi nahi karti mujhse. Mujhe padhna achha bhi lagne lage na to bhi nahi padh sakta main yahaan. Bhaag jaaoonga main ek din yahaan se. Tum sab se door. Dhoondhna chahoge bhi to nahi miloonga. Nanima bhi aaj kal beemar rehti hain. Kuchh din mein tumhe kisiko nahi sambhaalna padega. Phir jo tum karna chaahti ho kar sakti ho. Koi tumko nahi rokega.”
As Garjan was hypnotically letting out emotions that had been pecking at his brain, and playing with his nerves, Bhama walked towards him and took him in her arms. As if in a Trans, he continued with the explosion of words even with his face tucked hard into his mother’s chest. Amma gradually rocked along with him to make him calm down. With the meditativeness of the steady motion of their bodies, Bhama could feel her uncontainable eyes that were tightly squeezed shut, but would open any moment to the uncensored stream of tears. She could sense her own suffering in her child. Garjan’s voice faded into silence, and they both sat on the cushioned settee in absolute stillness, merged into each other, as if the child still lay in her womb. Then, Garjan heard the ghunghrus again. Before he could turn around to look at his mother for answers, they both jerked up to alertness, hearing a loud thud from the creaking door of the house that would have banged on the adjacent weak pine. Nanima also hauled her head up from the pillow only to realise the weakness of her muscles which gave way in that reflexive moment itself. They could hear the abrupt movement of feet over the wooden flooring, and they all knew that Gaurav had returned. Along with his drunken body came the wind that had earlier been much less frozen, and had found its way in only through cracks in the walls. Now, the house was full with the darkness outside. The compensation provided by the starry sky was also not present inside. Not a father, but an intruder he seemed to be. The serenity with which everyone in the house lay, transformed into repulsion and disgust. Bhama got up throwing her black woollen shawl on the settee, and with heavy steps she paced towards the kitchen to her left over work for the night. The pungent scent from Appa struck all of Garjan’s senses, so he swiftly moved towards the open door to purify himself by drowning in the gush of the numbing freshness of the wind. He stood there even after he was unable to move his jaws or feel his hands. In the days, silence pierced him, and in the nights he searched for niches in the house where he could find it, but this day was different. In his mother’s arms, he had found peace in the silence of the day, so now he hoped for peace in the same arms in the night, from the muffled shouts in the wooden house. The yelling had started to reach its peak now. “Chalo sheher. Kitni baar bola hai maine tumko. Ye ghar jis din gir jaayega sar pe, kya us din samajh aayega tumhe?”
Gaurav’s face was a burnt brown due to the strong sun. He had been farming in the other side of the village, on a businessman’s land, for the past ten years. His wrinkled and sagging cheeks now matched the colour of his eyes swollen with the drinks he had with his friends in the field. He shouted, “Ammaji bhi to padi hain yahaan takhat par, tooti phooti, saalon purani. Inhen bhi chhod do yahaan, jaise is ghar ko chhodna chahti ho!”
Bhama noticed Garjan’s pale face peeping in from the door, and hoped that soon he would be relieved of this noise. Bhama wetted her cracked lips with her tongue, and knowing that Garjan could hear her clearly, she responded to Gaurav. “Tumhe is ghar se zyaada pyaar hai ya hum se? Garjan ka socha hai kabhi? Uski padhai pe dhyaan diya hai? Aaj kal man nahi lagta uska kitabon mein. Aur lagega bhi kaise… saara din to hum kaam pe rehte hain aur thak ke raat ko aate hain. Wo bhi kyun? Kyunki ye tumhaari pyaari sookhi zameen kuchh deti nahi humein, aur is ghar ko khada rakhe rehne ke liye wo kamaye huye paise bhi dene padte hain.”
“Tumhaari yaadein nahi meri yaadein judi hain is ghar se. Paison se zyaada, mera bachpan keemti hai mere liye. Paida hua tha yahaan, to maroonga bhi yahaan.” Saying this he stomped and went out the back door, into the small garden, almost falling to the ground in his state of partial consciousness. In this chaos, Garjan had entered the room and had crouched under Nanima’s bed. He sat there, trying to hold on to the gentle feel of her mother’s arms. He hugged himself tightly for there was no one else to make him feel better. The love that he had felt a few moments back now dissolved into the voices that only sounded like murmurs through the bony fingers that clutched his ears tightly. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he tried to focus only on the creaking sounds came from over his head, when Nanima shifted in her bed. Just as Garjan had blocked off all the other sounds, the creaking of the bed transformed into a painful moan from the grandmother. This broke Garjan’s concentration, and with a jerk he opened his eyes. He sat there quietly for a while, waiting for another moan, unsure if he had really heard it the first time. A brown blanket draped down from the bed, so he wasn’t able to see anyone. He only could hear heavy footsteps on the wooden floor. So, he lay down on the cold floor and lifted the blanket, slightly.
A pair of tired eyes, just above the ground, looked around. They saw Gaurav standing at the edge of the garden below which were only rocks and darkness. “Ye wo hai jisne hum sab ko yahaan baandh ke rakha hai, jisne Amma ko manaa kar diya mujhe sheher le jaane ke liye, aur is toote huye ghar mein rehne ko majboor kar diya.” The eyes travelled out of the door, and into the garden. They watched Gaurav take hesitant steps over the loose mud at the periphery of the garden. Then, a black figure dashed at a blinding speed, and with the sound of ghunghrus bouncing off stones and fading into the depth, Gaurav vanished.
Garjan ran to the end of the garden, and looked down. It was all black. He bent down and picked up his father’s red shirt that had ripped off, and was now stuck on the stem of a dead plant. Hearing sudden movements and sounds from the garden, Bhama ran out of the house. For a moment she thought that she saw Gaurav, but soon realised that it was Garjan with Gaurav’s deep red shirt in his hands, flowing down to the ground. Bhama’s strong body dropped to the knees, lifeless. Garjan walked away, without turning or stopping. He walked out into the soulless night, and moved straight up on the mud tracks, into the forest. The night grew darker than the black he ever knew. The stormy wind was carrying Garjan through the deodars, when he saw something black and slender behind one of the trunks. It growled into the winter night.
Bhama’s numb eyes were shocked by the redness that hung from Garjan’s hands. She had been hearing Ammaji cough for a long time, but hadn’t been able to move. Now, the coughing had stopped, and so had the creaking of the bed. The storm was getting stronger, and Bhama could hardly keep her eyes open. She got up and walked towards the point where Garjan had stood. She could see the red cloth in his hands. She tried to pull it out, but was unable to. She could see it, and feel it, but she felt helpless. She tugged at it, but Garjan’s hands held it so tightly that all her efforts went in vain. She lost the strength to see her innocent child who had become someone she had created for a better life, that seemed much further away than it was yesterday. She had to destroy this creation. She had to throw away that red shirt that rippled in the wind. With all her speed she ran to push him down. There was no one there, her steps were much too quick, and the grass was too wet with dew to have made a halt possible.
